By Megan Sayles
AFRO Staff Writer
msayles@afro.com
The Department of Education (ED) has been forced to double back on its March 2025 decision to lay off hundreds of civil rights employees. In December 2025, the agency called back employees who worked in its Office of Civil Rights (OCR) because a massive backlog of discrimination complaints had erupted.
One OCR staffer, who requested anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said the office is now facing roughly 24,000 to 25,000 cases.
“That’s the product of what has happened— the effect of not having staff working on cases,” said the employee. “Our heart hurts for the student with a disability whose individual education plan or section 504 plan is not being enforced or implemented. Our heart hurts for students who, because of the color of their skin, are being treated a certain type of way or being bullied and harassed. Our heart hurts for the students who, based upon their national origin, are being mistreated and ostracized.”
She said the current administration has disrupted how the office has historically run.
“There’s just so much that we can’t help with. The state of affairs is different for this administration,” said the employee. “It’s, ‘we’re going to prioritize what we want to prioritize.’ The members of the public are suffering because no one’s looking at whether or not there is any civil rights violation in what’s happening to them.”
According to the staffer, the breakdown began months before the reduction in force (RIF) in March 2025. Following the administration change in January 2025, OCR employees were largely barred from communicating externally or advancing most cases.
During that time, employees were inundated with emails from parents, school districts, universities and K-12 schools seeking updates on pending investigations, but they were prohibited from responding. Only disability-related cases were permitted to move forward, and even then, communication was limited.
On March 11, the staffer said she was notified of the RIF— just days after the department had lifted these restrictions. That evening, while working remotely on her caseload, her computer automatically shut down around 6 p.m. When it restarted, she could no longer send emails or access key internal systems. The staffer and many of her colleagues were told their last day would be March 21.
Lawsuits quickly followed, challenging the legality of the reductions in force. Courts temporarily blocked the department from finalizing their terminations. Still, the staffer said, the administration has made it clear it intends to continue pursuing the RIF, leaving many employees uncertain about how long their reinstatement will last.
“Unlawful is the word to describe what our experience was like in 2025, and many are hopeful that that will change,” said the staffer.
The American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) Local 252, which represents more than 2,700 ED employees, criticized the current administration’s handling of OCR staffing in a December statement issued when employees were called back to work.
“For more than nine months, hundreds of employees at the Office for Civil Rights have been sidelined from the critical work of protecting our nation’s most vulnerable students and families,” said President Rachel Gittleman.
She said agency leadership chose to keep civil rights staff on paid administrative leave rather than allow them to do their jobs, a decision the union estimated wasted more than $40 million in taxpayer funds.
“While we are relieved these public servants are finally being allowed to return to work, Education Secretary Linda McMahon has made clear that she would rather play politics than uphold her responsibility to protect students’ rights. Her actions have undermined the Department’s mission, harmed families and subjected dedicated federal employees to needless uncertainty, abuse and harassment,” said Gittleman. “We will continue to fight to hold this administration accountable and to stand with the hardworking public servants who show up every day to ensure every student in America is treated with dignity, fairness and respect.”
